Wear Me Out
by love-fool
Summary: My life is like the lottery, either I win or I lose and it doesn’t matter how I played the game. Right now, I’ve lost but I have money for just one more ticket. One Shot


Disclaimer: I do not own Degrassi. Hell, I'm not even Canadian. I also do not own the various products and movies that are mentioned in this fic. The title is a reference to the song "6 Underground" by Sneaker Pimps. Download it and listen to it. It's awesome.

A/N: Contains Spoilers for those who have not seen episodes past Bark at the Moon. The setting is pretty obvious for the fic, so I don't want to spoil it. Reviews are love.

o o o o o

Ugh, who knew high school graduation was going to be such a miserable experience? I'm sitting here in this uber tacky graduation outfit that looks like it's a circus tent rather than a gown. If you clump that together with the air conditioning being completely busted, it's enough to drive anyone insane. According to some people like Heather Sinclair and her horrible nose, I'd be going on a rampage now. Well, Heather Sinclair's words are about as fake as her silicone investments, so I honestly don't know why in the world people listen to anything she says. At least when I talk about people, I'm speaking the truth. I've always been a blunt person whether people like it or not. The truth is virtuous and freeing but I'm anything but virtuous. Leave virtue to someone like Emma Nelson. Paige Michalchuk doesn't do virtue or those Ugg boots that were big a year or two ago.

I don't know how I started to fall from grace. It just sort of happened. It's one of those mysteries I'm going to be pondering for the rest of my life. How did the dinosaurs become extinct? Whose bright idea was it to make Lime Coke? And how in the world did Heather Sinclair become queen of grade twelve? There has been so many times where I just want to smack her and pull her hair. Honestly, I'm not some sort of brat who kicks and screams if she doesn't get her way. I make sure I get my way. But somehow, Heather Sinclair managed to pull the rug from underneath my feet and steal my so called best friend in the process.

Ellie and Craig romp around the hallway together looking all cute. If they were a part of Hollywood, they'd so be the hot couple right now. Ellie's filming everyone while Craig asks them questions and looks like a complete goof. With Ashley moving to England, Terri being in private school, and Hazel not existing in my world anymore, I've resorted to hanging out and talking to people I wouldn't have in grade eight. There was no way in hell I'd be civil to Ellie, Craig, and Alex. However, Ellie's kind of quirky in a Debbie from Empire Records way minus the shaved head and the vespa. Even though Craig did cheat on my former best friend with Manny Santos, he has a killer voice even if he does mostly sing a lot of depressing emo music. And Alex? Well, she's still my co-worker and she actually turned out to be not a grungy gangster type of chick. I mean, not that I'm friends with any gangsters, but they usually don't run for President or do the drama club or help with the Student Council car wash.

I guess when you lose your oh so glamorous social status, your hot older boyfriend, and your best friend, you start to try to look for other people who you can relate to or whatever. It's not like, I'm this disgusting little loner with greasy hair and coke bottle glasses. It's like, for once in my life I'm actually someone normal that has a normal life brimming with ups and downs. I'm driving down an unfamiliar road and it's actually sort of invigorating. According to my mom, I'm more grounded. I fell but it didn't hurt. I know I haven't gone through some warped transformation like Ashley did. I'm diet Paige with less popularity. I've always had a thing for diet drinks. I mean, not only do they have zero calories but they're usually cheaper at the grocery store for some reason. Also, the taste is the same regardless of what Marco says about regular Dr. Pepper versus diet Dr. Pepper.

I'm going to miss the taste of high school. It'll be like going from Coca Cola to Pepsi because you ran out of Coke and all they had at the grocery store. Even though Dylan's reassuring me like crazy that university is the best time ever, I'm not exactly sure if I believe him. University is being thrown into a tank of sharks. If the sharks don't attack you, then you can get out of the tank and go to a party for a while. After that, it's back with the sharks. Do I have no clue what in the world I'm doing with my future? I think not. There are so many possibilities and an array of things I could possibly do for the rest of my life. But I don't know how in the world to narrow it all down. It's like, deciding whether the chicken or the egg came first. In other words, it's mission impossible. I've always been incredibly indecisive at times. I mean, there have been times where I knew what I wanted and I was going to get it. Of course, half of the time everything went completely and utterly wrong. My life is like the lottery, either I win or I lose and it doesn't matter how I played the game. Right now, I've lost but I have money for just one more ticket. At this point, I either win or lose. The possibility of losing makes me want to just keep the money.

I've lost so much since I set foot inside this school. Maybe Ash was right in grade ten. Maybe this school really is cursed. But you know, Ash has always been such a wreck since the whole E incident. Did she not listen to the lecture we had in health class about drugs? Drugs equal you're a skeevy loser who spends all of their money on a habit that's basically going to screw you over in the end. The world really seemed to stop when perfect little Ashley Kerwin dumped her amazing boyfriend because he never had what Sean had and never would. He just wasn't enough for her, he said. Hello? Jimmy Brooks is every girl's knight in shining armor. He'll whisk you off into the sunset on his magic white horse and you'll live happily ever after. Of course, Ashley always tends to pull through for you when you're sinking and there's no one around to help you. Even though she's made so many mistakes and can be a complete drama queen, she's such a strong person who just makes you feel strong when you're week. It's so surreal. Grade eleven was the year when I started to come undone. I wrecked Spinner's car. I lost my license. I lost Spinner. I almost lost Jimmy. I had the most amazing boyfriend ever but lost him to some skank named Charlie after he came back from the Yukon. In the beginning of grade twelve, I wanted to murder Hazel for cheating on Jimmy and eventually breaking up with him. Somehow, she ended up befriending Heather Sinclair and they both pushed me off my pedestal. For one reason or another, I so did not feel a thing. It was almost like I subliminally knew it was going to happen. I didn't even bother to stop it. I thought Dean pushed me off of my pedestal but somehow I clung on before being pushed off by my supposed best friend and the girl I loathed more than anything in the world.

So here I am, in a tacky graduation gown waiting to get the hell out of high school and not to know what I'm going to do with my life. I'm scared, cranky, and sweating so my foundation is probably melting off my face. I want to hide in the girl's room rather than receive my diploma. I just want to run so far away and keep doing so for eternity. I hate uncertainty and the possibility of things not going my way. It makes me feel so weak and Paige Michalchuk does not do weak.

"Hey," I hear a voice beside me. It's so heart breaking to see Jimmy still in his wheelchair. His dreams are crushed. His supposed best friend and my ex-boyfriend completely stabbed him in the back. "Why aren't you smiling, Michalchuk? Its graduation which means freedom which means we finally get to get out of here."

"Jim, smiling isn't exactly something I want to do right now," I inform him. "I mean, hooray for freedom and all of that. But freedom's kind of scary because there's just so much you can do with it." I sigh as I take off my cap and run my hands through my hair. I just want to bury myself in my hair and not go into that auditorium. I just want to remain in suspension for the rest of my life. I don't want freedom. I don't want adulthood. I want to go back to grade eight and start to do everything over. I won't blame Hazel for the whole ripping out Emma's article thing. I won't call Ashley a hag. I want redemption even though I don't usually regret things. But I will regret things just so I can go back in time and not be in this single moment right now.

He nods, "I get what you're saying. I mean, I thought I had everything planned out but now I'm back at square one. Unless, of course, there's some coach out there who wants a guy doing wheelies while shooting hoops." He tries to crack a smile. It's so like Jimmy not to dwell on things in such an unattractive fashion. There's a silver lining to every cloud in his sky even with everything that's happened to him.

"I think those Harlem Globetrotters would kill to have you," I inform him. "Plus I hear they make a ton of money. That's what Dylan's new boyfriend has told me, anyway. He's a total basketball junkie."

"Sounds like my kind of guy, you know, friend wise," He says as he glances at the doors leading into the auditorium filled with our relatives and teachers and friends. "I don't want to go in there." He's still staring at the doors before he looks back at me.

I roll my eyes, "Well, Brooks, welcome to the 'I don't want to grow up' club. The members are you and me. Naturally, of course, I have to be president because I have zip direction."

Mr. Simpson's voice comes out of nowhere and tells us to get into alphabetical order as Ellie points her video camera at him to record such a monumental moment. It's the one that I've been dreading for the past forty minutes. Closure and I have never been best friends ever, so why start now with high school graduation? I sigh as I place the equally tacky cap on my head which will probably end up giving me hat hair. I'll have hat hair with frizzy ends and it'll look completely horrible.

"Newsflash, Paige, I don't know what I'm going to do either," Jimmy tells me as if it's something oh so shocking. Well, okay, it really is. They've been pounding about knowing what exactly we're going to do with our lives since like, ninth grade. There are the people who know what they're going to do. There are the people who have some sort of vague idea. There are the people who don't want to do anything and all and just want to rot in their parent's basement for eternity. Then there are people like Jimmy and I who want to do something but we don't know what.

"Time to graduate," He sighs. I can feel his eyes burning at my skin before for some reason; he gives me a kiss on the cheek. The guy that I played kickball with in kindergarten just kissed me. The guy who I kind of had a crush on for the longest time just kissed me. He waves to me before wheeling away. I feel my face flushing from the broken air conditioning system among very recent things. I wonder if somehow Ellie captured it on tape when Craig was fooling around with the camera. But this moment will play in the VCR of my mind for eternity and I really don't mind.

And for some reason, this moment just made me feel a tad better. The future is still a scary place but it's like, _I still know what you did last summer _scary rather than _The Ring_ sort of scary. I still don't know why someone decided to make lime coke and I still don't know what I'm going to do with my life. But I feel like I can do practically anything right now. Except of course, be a waitress. The uniforms are completely tacky and balancing that much food on one plate should be a circus attack.

Whatever happens, Jimmy Brooks is always going to have my back and that's completely comforting.


End file.
